The present invention relates to portable water conditioners for domestic use.
The increasing number of studies relating to domestic water quality have generated a correspondingly increasing interest in the provision of low-cost portable water conditioning units for use by the homeowner. While a large rechargeable water conditioning unit has been utilized in many residences throughout the country to combat unpleasant taste, hardness, alkalinity and often times bacteria, much of the water used in the residence is not directly consumed by the occupants and need not be treated. Designed to reduce water conditioning expenses by treating only the water at a single location, the portable unit adapted to be fitted to the kitchen sink within the residence has found a rapidly increasing market.
One such device presently being marketed is described in my U.S. Pat. No. 4,368,123 entitled "Regenerative Counter-top Water Conditioner". This unit is designed to provide in a single container, the water conditioning compounds which perform the ion exchange processes also treat the water to reduce the bacteria count. This type of unit has performed well relying on both anion count and cation exchange resins in combination with silver-activated carbon to both condition domestic water and reduce the bacteria count often found to be relatively high in municipal water systems. These devices are regenerative in that after a certain volume of water has been processed, the unit is reverse-flowed or flushed out in combination with a specific regenerant compound.
These units utilize relatively expensive silver-activated materials to reduce a high bacteria count in the water. However, in applications wherein the domestic water supply is taken from a pure or pretreated source, the bacteria reduction treatment is no longer necessary, and silver-activated materials need not be employed. This is advantageous since the use of silver-activated compounds greatly increases the price of the unit. To this end, it is a primary objective of the present invention to provide a portable water conditioner for domestic use designed to utilize a non-activated carbon containing compound in a separately accessible container. This reduces the cost of water conditioning unit and enables independent regeneration of the ion exchange resins by providing separate containers for the different media. It further enables the relatively low cost charcoal medium having a different active life time to be utilized with the medium being replaced without handling or opening the relatively large ion exchange resin container.
The present invention also simplifies manufacture of the apparatus by employing interchangeable flow diversion means within the different containers to reduce the assembly cost. Also, these diversion means provide a plurality of flow paths within the different containers to more fully utilize the volume of medium employed by reducing channeling of the medium which tends to decrease efficiency of operation. This has the benefit of reducing the number of regeneration cycles for a given volume of treated water passing therethrough.